Archive for the ‘jobless’ Category

The Philippine Embassy in Hanoi warned jobseekers against unauthorized recruiters promising work in Vietnam after it received reports that certain Filipinos based in Ho Chi Minh City have recruited workers from the Philippines for jobs in that city.

However, upon arrival in Ho Chi Minh without valid job contracts, work visas, and work permits, the victims found out that there were no employers and no jobs waiting for them.

The “recruiters,” who allegedly earned from the overpriced plane tickets paid by the victims, leave the recruits to fend for themselves.

By Pia Lee-Brago
Philippine Star

Philippine Ambassador to Vietnam Laura del Rosario said concerned members of the Filipino community in the city brought the matter to the embassy’s attention and noted that Vietnam’s labor market may be affected by the global recession.

The victims allegedly pawned their properties and availed themselves of loans to be able to pay the Manila-Ho Chi Minh City-Manila plane ticket arranged for them by recruiters.

The victims paid from P25,000 to P30,000 per person for the plane ticket, which is around $535 to $640.

The airfare of Cebu Pacific and PAL ranges from $150 to $400 only.

The embassy urged all Filipinos who want to work in Vietnam to go through the proper channels of the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) and the Overseas Workers’ Welfare Administration (OWWA) for proper documentation to avoid being victimized by illegal recruiters.

As in all other countries, proper documentation (i.e., valid contract, work visa, and work permit) is a must for foreign workers in Vietnam.

A majority of Filipinos working in Vietnam occupy executive and managerial positions in fields such as construction and engineering, accountancy, banking and investment, education, garment/textile industry, hotel and restaurant management, food and beverage, marketing, furniture industry, medicine, and foreign investment projects.

The nation’s jobless ranks zoomed past 10 million last month, the most in a quarter-century, as piles of pink slips shut factory gates and office doors to 240,000 more Americans with the holidays nearing. Politicians and economists agreed on a painful bottom line: It’s only going to get worse.

The unemployment rate soared to a 14-year high of 6.5 percent, the government said Friday, up from 6.1 percent just a month earlier. And there was more grim news from U.S. automakers: Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Corp., American giants struggling to survive, each reported big losses and figured to be announcing even more job cuts before long.

Regulators, meanwhile, shut down Houston-based Franklin Bank and Security Pacific Bank in Los Angeles on Friday, bringing the number of failures of federally insured banks this year to 19.

By JEANNINE AVERSA, AP Economics Writer

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. was appointed receiver of Franklin Bank, which had $5.1 billion in assets and $3.7 billion in deposits as of Sept. 30, and of Security Pacific Bank, with $561.1 million in assets and $450.1 million in deposits as of Oct. 17.

Barack Obama, in his first news conference as president-elect, said the nation was facing the economic challenge of a lifetime but expressed confidence he could deal with it.

“Immediately after I become president, I’m going to confront this economic crisis head on by taking all necessary steps to ease the credit crisis, help hardworking families, and restore growth and prosperity,” he said after meeting with economic advisers in Chicago. “I’m confident a new president can have an enormous impact.”

The nation’s unemployment rate bolted to a 14-year high of 6.5 percent in October as another 240,000 jobs were cut, far worse than economists expected and stark proof the economy is deteriorating at an alarmingly rapid pace.

By JEANNINE AVERSA, AP Economics Writer

The new snapshot, released Friday by the Labor Department, showed the crucial jobs market quickly eroding. The jobless rate zoomed to 6.5 percent in October from 6.1 percent in September, matching the rate in March 1994.

Job seekers wait in line at an October 2008 Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Career Open House in New York City. The White House on Friday said that a sharp rise in unemployment figures in October highlighted the importance of a government response, but indicated no new powers were needed.(AFP/Getty Images/File/Mario Tama)

Unemployment has now surpassed the high seen after the last recession in 2001. The jobless rate peaked at 6.3 percent in June 2003.

October’s decline marked the 10th straight month of payroll reductions, and government revisions showed that job losses in August and September turned out to be much deeper. Employers cut 127,000 positions in August, compared with 73,000 previously reported. A whopping 284,000 jobs were axed in September, compared with the 159,000 jobs first reported.

So far this year, a staggering 1.2 million jobs have disappeared. Over half of the decrease occurred in the past three months alone.

Although the unemployment report was worse than expected, and Ford Motor Co. reported dismal third-quarter results and announced plans to cut more than 2,000 additional white-collar jobs, Wall Street investors appeared to take it all in stride. The Dow Jones industrial average was up more than 190 points in morning trading.

The bad news on Wall Street is good news for military recruiting and retention, the Pentagon’s top personnel official said Oct. 10.

“We do benefit when things look less positive in civil society,” said David S.C. Chu, undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, said in a Pentagon briefing. “That is a situation where more are willing to give us a chance. I think that’s the big difference — people willing to listen to us.”

A U.S. soldier from 5th Battalion, 7th Air Defence Artillery secures the road during a joint military training with Bulgarian army soldiers at Novo Selo military base near the town of Sliven, some 350 km (217 miles) east of Sofia October 9, 2008.REUTERS/Oleg Popov (BULGARIA)

But while the downturn in the economy is making it easier for the services to recruit and retain people, Chu said he doesn’t expect spending on enlistment and re-enlistment bonuses to drop in the near term, even though more may see the military as a shelter against a sagging civilian job market.

Carrying the weight of the war in Iraq, the Army said Friday it had nonetheless made its recruiting goal for the past year and had kept more than enough veteran soldiers in uniform.

The Army exceeded its goal of 80,000 recruits by more than 500 people. The Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps just edged past their marks but put a bow on a badly needed wartime success story. It was the ninth year in a row the Air Force met its goal.

“This is the strongest recruiting year we’ve had overall …. since fiscal year 2004,” David Chu, undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, said in a Pentagon release.

As it has been for many years, even before Sept. 11, 2001, the fall recruiting and retention report was a mixed bag. A Pentagon report stressed that more than 92 percent of all new recruits held a high school diploma, compared with 75 percent nationwide among the same age group. But services that were forced to battle for recruits during the 1990s boom years have found new troubles over seven years of war.

Persuading parents to let their children join the Army continued to be a huge hurdle for 9,400 active-duty and reserve recruiters. The Army also said that eight in every 10 new active-duty soldiers held a high school diploma — a reflection of reluctant “influencers,” people whose advice recruiters deem critical. The number was below the Pentagon goal of 90 percent.

The latest numbers reflect recruiting for the federal fiscal year ending Sept. 30. This year the Army easily beat its mark for active-duty recruits, and the Air Force, Navy and Marines also met their recruiting goals, as did the nation’s six reserve components.

Retaining veteran troops proved difficult. While the Army and Navy topped their goals, the Air Force and Marines fell short, as did the reserves. The Pentagon said losses in the reserve components were “within acceptable limits” but provided no statistics.

The Army has missed its recruiting mark three times in the past decade, the last shortfall coming in 2005. It’s offered a variety of cash incentives to entice recruits and keep veterans in uniform, increased its maximum recruiting age to 41 and allowed more felons to join.

The number of felons granted “moral waivers” jumped by more than 500 in 2007. The Recruiting Command’s chief, Maj. Gen. Thomas Bostick, said the Army granted only 372 felony waivers this year.

Also, 240 people age 40 and over went to boot camp. The same number of 40-plus recruits signed up in 2007.

The Pentagon report showed that Texas retained the title of the nation’s No. 1 state in the nation for active-duty Army recruits, with 10,951 soldiers. It’s been No. 1 at least three years.

San Antonio, the nation’s No. 1 Army recruiting battalion for three years running, signed up 3,970 active-duty soldiers and reservists. It fell short, however, of being best overall in America this year — though Army officials weren’t sure which battalion surpassed the Alamo City.

“We can’t be No. 1 forever, but we’re pretty close,” said Bart Keyes, spokesman for the San Antonio battalion.

WASHINGTON – The number of newly laid off workers filing for unemployment benefits rose last week to the highest level in nearly two months, providing more evidence that the weak economy is having an adverse impact on the labor market.

The Labor Department said Thursday that applications for jobless benefits totaled 378,000 last week. That was an increase of 22,000 from the previous week and was a far bigger jump than had been expected.

Unemployment soared to 5 percent last month while job gains nearly ground to a halt, the clearest sign yet that the economy has stalled in the wake of last fall’s housing and credit crisis.
Manufacturers, builders, banks and even retailers laid off more than 100,000 workers at the height of the Christmas shopping season, the Labor Department reported yesterday. Those losses were barely offset by employment gains in education, health, leisure, government and business services, which produced a net increase of just 18,000 jobs.
Job growth for the month and for all of 2007, at 1.33 million, were the lowest since 2003. Outside government, private sector jobs actually shrank by 13,000 in December….

WASHINGTON – More people signed up for unemployment benefits last week, suggesting that the job market is softening as the economy loses speed.

The Labor Department reported Thursday that new applications filed for jobless benefits rose by a seasonally adjusted 12,000 to 346,000. It was a larger increase than economists were expecting. They were forecasting claims to rise to 335,000 last week.

The four-week moving average of new claims for unemployment benefits rose by 4,250 to 343,000 last week, the highest level in two years.